packing up

I spent this past Friday packing up my mother’s room. In the immediate weeks after she died, my brother & I had tried to do it, but couldn’t. It was too soon. We had agreed that it was something we would do later, together. Well, circumstances forced me to do it Friday, alone.

For the most part, I packed her things up into storage containers to be stored in the garage. A few things were more easily sent off to Goodwill. While I couldn’t bear to part with her clothes, I could let go of her shoes. I really don’t understand the logic of that. But, then again, how am I supposed to logically wrap my mind around the fact that I’m packing up my mother’s room & getting rid of some of her things when I still illogically expect her to walk through the door & apologize for being gone so long.

A few clothing items neither made it into the storage containers or the donation boxes. Instead, they ended up in a box in my closet. The t-shirt I remember her wearing the day before she died. The pajamas she was wearing the morning when I last saw her alive. And a few other items that she always wore & that I most easily remember her in. These were the items that had me crying, reliving, hating the reality of the situation. To say the day sucked, to say it was one of the worst of the last 8-and-a-half months, is an understatement. The day easily ranks in the top 10 shittiest days of this whole experience.

I don’t know when I, or my brother, will be ready to finally let go of the containers of her things now stored in the garage. I don’t know if we will ever be ready to let those things go. While the most sentimental & significant items remain scattered throughout the house & a part of our every day lives, these insignificant items still hold too much significance. My mother would find it ironic that I of all people now find such attachment to this stuff. I used to bitch & complain that she had too much stuff–stuff she never used, clutter that served no purpose. She found it hard to let go. I kept volunteering to go through her stuff, to help her get rid of what she really didn’t need. Only days before she died, I begged her again to let me do so. She refused. And now, I’m here holding on to things she’ll never use, things that will serve her no purpose, glad that it’s all still here.

Like everything else about this, it makes no sense.

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One Response to “packing up”

Oh Alison. I know I’m always sayiing this, but I can’t begin to imagine how wrenching this must have been (It *is* a funny distinction between the clothes and the shoes, but somehow I totally get it and think I would do the same thing). What a long, difficult day that must have been.

Glad you are hanging on to some of the things that touch you the most. And there’s no rush to deal with the rest.

What a crappy day, but I’m glad you shared it here with us and hope that writing about it helped, even a little.